Why do I read? I just can't help myself. I read to learn and to grow, to laugh and to be motivated. I read to understand things I've never been exposed to. I read when I'm crabby, when I've just said monumentally dumb things to the people I love. I read for strength to help me when I feel broken, discouraged, and afraid. I read when I'm angry at the whole world. I read when everything is going right. I read to find hope. I read because I'm made up not just of skin and bones, of sights, feelings, and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm also made up of words. Words describe my thoughts and what's hidden in my heart. Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.
Gary Paulsen
Related People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business. A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. It is hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground. The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed. The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no diff... The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn. Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words. Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads Let love through good deeds show. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. In everyone's heart stirs a great homesickness. That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it. Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience. One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first ti... To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to... Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light. Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of... Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their chi... A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and d... If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool. Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog. Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it ... Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs. Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice. The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless. Friendship is love with understanding. So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan. Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment. Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue. An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have li... Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts. We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy. People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example. Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good... The guilty catch themselves. Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into. If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price. Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it. Hate pollutes the mind. If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves. To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle. Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it. A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming t... "Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you." It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary. Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy. It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it. It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside. Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the t... Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for ... Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole. Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor. "What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood i... It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice. Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words. Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason. Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses. Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and u... Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they? A good laugh is sunshine in a house. When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are. One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us ... No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous. Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break. The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-re... Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand. Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others. You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about... Age withers only the outside. Where ambition ends happiness begins. The best answer to answer to anger is silence. The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry. A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about. People who know the least always argue the most. If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them. What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir. Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe. He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance It is better to live richly than to die rich. On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor... Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them. Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness. We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct... A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it. Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life. Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it. Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and re... Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind. Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity a... There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all. The only person worth envying is he person who doesn't envy.
More Gary Paulsen
Years ago, when I was writing westerns, other writers who were friends of mine wanted me to collabor... GARY PAULSEN Look at Inuit clothing. Their stuff still works better than Cabela's. I've made my own parka... GARY PAULSEN I ran the Iditarod twice. I finished once. I came in 42nd or 43rd place out of 70 plus teams the fir... GARY PAULSEN The maximum expression of running dogs is the Iditarod. You enter a state of primitive exaltation, a... GARY PAULSEN In our family, we've always been owned by border collies, or dogs of one kind or another, and ha... GARY PAULSEN School didn't work for me. I hated it. GARY PAULSEN A border collie saved me once when I was pinned under a horse in Colorado. And once when I went thro... GARY PAULSEN In sailing, I single-hand, and I want to do the Horn. The Horn is the maximum expression of sailing,... GARY PAULSEN I think that what computers have done is just disastrous to the language. 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GARY PAULSEN And he's never met anyone like Harris, his unruly daredevil of a cousin. GARY PAULSEN It was a strange feeling, holding the rifle. It somehow removed him from everything around him. With... GARY PAULSEN He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forge... GARY PAULSEN Well, he’d actually never heard anybody say it. But he felt that it should be true. There GARY PAULSEN I'd learned some things. I knew you weren't supposed to hold a good wine at the top - the pa... PAT PAULSEN I read an article that said one in five Americans thinks Elvis is alive. I want to find those morons... PAT PAULSEN I came down to Orange because I sold the Smothers Brothers a song called 'Chocolate,' and th... PAT PAULSEN It's tough campaigning, kissing hands and shaking babies. PAT PAULSEN I've upped my standards. Now, up yours. PAT PAULSEN Now that my wine has been served in the White House, why not me? Who could talk to farmers better th... 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ERIK PAULSEN We need a tax code that promotes savings, investment, achievement, innovation, and hard work. ERIK PAULSEN That's been hard being away from the family, because Washington can be lonely. When you tune out... ERIK PAULSEN Any law can be changed, obviously, at any time. ERIK PAULSEN Our democracy is predicated on the belief that our government should be accessible by the people. We... ERIK PAULSEN This program will use the network of more than 800 local Red Cross chapters across the country to he... RUSS PAULSEN One of the things that I'm really proud of is that I have really good timing. It's very easy... GARY VAYNERCHUK I influence anybody who is able to get through the chaos of my first impression. GARY VAYNERCHUK When I was living in Mexico and writing a book called 'Aztec,' I had to make a deliberate ef... GARY JENNINGS I hope that people will see that we don't have to sit by the sidelines and watch as the two majo... GARY JOHNSON For some reason, Superman seems to be held to higher standards on the subject of secret/super identi... GARY FRANK Keep yourself motivated. You've got to be motivated, you've got to wake up every day and und... GARY COHN If there were no government-guaranteed student loans, college tuition would be much lower. GARY JOHNSON You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars. GARY ALLAN Somebody said they threw their copy of Dungeons and Dragons into the fire, and it screamed. It's... GARY GYGAX Both the Winter and the Summer Solstices are expressions of love. They show us the opposition of lig... GARY ZUKAV When two people in an intimate-couple relationship look at their interactions as opportunities to le... GARY ZUKAV The more aware of your intentions and your experiences you become, the more you will be able to conn... GARY ZUKAV A spiritual partnership is between people who promise themselves to use all of their experiences to ... GARY ZUKAV The spring wakes us, nurtures us and revitalizes us. How often does your spring come? If you are a p... GARY ZUKAV There is no other way to change something or someone for the better except to occupy it first. The o... GARY ZUKAV We cannot control what emotions or circumstances we will experience next, but we can choose how we w... GARY ZUKAV The coming and going of the seasons give us more than the springtimes, summers, autumns, and winters... GARY ZUKAV The characteristics of an authentically empowered personality are humbleness, clarity, forgiveness a... GARY ZUKAV We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make t... GARY ZUKAV The heart of the 2008 financial crisis was a coterie of reckless financial executives, working for t... GARY WEISS Enhanced interrogation is not to be considered lightly, but the use of enhanced interrogation techni... GARY BAUER I just see religious freedom, as a category, as just being a black hole. GARY JOHNSON Particularly black Americans, many of them, from quotes that I have seen and conversations I've ... GARY BAUER People are fed up with the way things are. There is a lot of bitterness out there, a lot of anger ab... GARY LINEKER I went to Berlin to study psychology but decided that I was more interested in music and started an ... GARY WRIGHT By the law of averages, there has to be life elsewhere. The universe is so huge, and I don't thi... GARY WRIGHT I was the first artist, I think, to ever do an all-keyboard album. There were things that resembled ... GARY WRIGHT Artists were nurtured back in the '70s. Their music was developed by the record companies. GARY WRIGHT I didn't develop or build synths. I had my technicians modify them for my live stage performance... GARY WRIGHT I like Anastacia's version of Love is Alive best. GARY WRIGHT I will be developing artists for my new label. The rest is in God's Hands. GARY WRIGHT I'm developing artists for my new record label, my son's band, Intangible, being one of them... GARY WRIGHT In 1972, George Harrison invited me to accompany him on a trip to India. GARY WRIGHT My music and lyrics became an extension of this Indian philosophy. GARY WRIGHT The idea to do the album only on keyboards kind of happened by accident. I was quite happy with the ... GARY WRIGHT The more far-out artists, the better. GARY WRIGHT We visited Ravi. We didn't study with him, as such. GARY WRIGHT I scored a movie called 'Endangered Species'. I worked on another movie called 'Staying ... GARY WRIGHT Music is an extremely powerful force if used properly to uplift people. I believe music should be up... GARY WRIGHT No one likes to work for free. To copy an artist's work and download it free is stealing. It'... GARY WRIGHT Music's staying power is a function of how timeless the lyrics, song and production are. GARY WRIGHT Human attention is limited, and a massive number of newly browsable books from the long tail necessa... GARY WOLF Books are an ancient and proven medium. Their physical form inspires passion. GARY WOLF Every day the choristers of the social web chirp their advice about openness and trust; craigslist f... GARY WOLF The Internet's great promise is to make the world's information universally accessible and u... GARY WOLF As a science fiction fan, I had always assumed that when computers supplemented our intelligence, it... GARY WOLF The intersection of political analysis and Internet theory is a busy crossroad of cliche, where fami... GARY WOLF Sometimes entire categories of craigslist are rendered nearly unusable by spam. Con artists prowl th... GARY WOLF Steve Jobs has been right twice. The first time we got Apple. The second time we got NeXT. The Macin... GARY WOLF Though social eugenics was discredited long ago, we still often think of the genome in quasi-eugenic... GARY WOLF Craigslist is not only gigantic in scale and totally resistant to business cooperation, it is also m... GARY WOLF Humans make errors. We make errors of fact and errors of judgment. We have blind spots in our field ... GARY WOLF Being a 911 operator means balancing seemingly contradictory skills. On one hand, operators have to ... GARY WOLF The fondest dream of the information age is to create an archive of all knowledge. You might call it... GARY WOLF For all their expertise at figuring out how things work, technical people are often painfully aware ... GARY WOLF If national safety - the ability to respond to hurricanes, terrorist attacks, earthquakes - depends ... GARY WOLF During a large disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, warnings get hopelessly jumbled. The truth is that,... GARY WOLF Beefs against debt collectors are consistently among the top complaints received by both the FTC and... GARY WEISS Oil futures were originally created to give heating oil dealers, gas retailers, aviation companies a... GARY WEISS Broadcasts from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange have propelled once-obscure financial journ... GARY WEISS At their worst, message boards can subject you to mindless braying or outright stock scams. But at t... GARY WEISS When the Securities & Exchange Commission settled securities-fraud charges against Richard Harri... GARY WEISS George Soros is one of the few characters from the world of finance who deserves to be called larger... GARY WEISS India may be the only country in the world that has been free of anti-Semitic prejudice throughout i... GARY WEISS People are told their rights when they're arrested. Consumers getting collection letters are ent... GARY WEISS With such enormous bucks devoted to trading in oil and other commodities, the distortions that they ... GARY WEISS Even a casual reader of the financial pages knows that microcaps are a perennial headache for regula... GARY WEISS Mutual funds dare to be average. In fact, they dare to be lousy. They have long since ceased strivin... GARY WEISS I've met Dick Syron. I like the guy. He's a man's man kind of character, a real charmer,... GARY WEISS Indians are sometimes accused of being condescending toward Westerners and of being excessively prea... GARY WEISS The flip side of humiliation is pride. GARY WEISS Humiliating events have a way of capturing the public's imagination. So it has been since antiqu... GARY WEISS Some hedge fund managers have made big bucks trading oil futures - George Soros is one. GARY WEISS In the U.S., diversity is a politically correct slogan. In India, it is a historical fact. Much as w... GARY WEISS Excessive hype, bankruptcy, cash burning like autumn leaves - such is the stuff of short-selling. GARY WEISS One problem with the focus on speculation is that it tends to promote the growth of the great intell... GARY WEISS You can't believe the government - on anything. And you especially can't believe them when t... GARY WEBB After spending three years of my life looking into this, I am more convinced than ever that the U.S.... GARY WEBB Beaujolais is so underrated. GARY VAYNERCHUK Nobody walks this earth thinking he's better than I think I am - I think I'm great. At the s... GARY VAYNERCHUK Storytelling is the game. It's what we all do. It's why Nike is Nike, it's why Apple is ... GARY VAYNERCHUK The reason we love our parents is because they loved us first. Every single company should take this... GARY VAYNERCHUK Be reactionary. React to what the market wants. And the market wants one-on-one real time engagement... GARY VAYNERCHUK The world has changed - through technology, through wine-making techniques, the quality of wine is g... GARY VAYNERCHUK It's insane to me to ask anybody to be what they're not. Know what you know the best, love t... GARY VAYNERCHUK I love people, and the hustle. GARY VAYNERCHUK When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. M... GARY VAYNERCHUK I am wired like a CEO and care a great deal about the bottom line, but I care about my customers eve... GARY VAYNERCHUK Stop doing things that waste time. Don't replace time with your family or things that you need t... GARY VAYNERCHUK The chef that grew up with the grandma who cooks tends to always beat the chef that went to the culi... GARY VAYNERCHUK My dad passed on asthma to me. It's kind of ironic because he outgrew it at 13. GARY VALENTINE The key in controlling my asthma is pretty simple: I have a good professional diagnosis, and I follo... GARY VALENTINE Asthma doesn't affect me, even though I have it. It can seem like it wants to act up a little if... GARY VALENTINE